


Cast Adrift

by le2biian (ClockworkDinosaur)



Series: sea of stars [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Alternate Universe - Space, Canon-Typical Violence, Classpect Powers (Homestuck), F/F, M/M, Minor Character Death, Not Epilogue Compliant, Not HS2 Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rebellion, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23793244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClockworkDinosaur/pseuds/le2biian
Summary: After a year of intergalactic travel, during which she had visited more planets than she had ever imagined, honed the powers she had once thought were as strong as possible, and traveled countless stellar miles chased by the armies of an enraged empress, Rose Lalonde is pretty sure she's seen it all.One year after the rescue of the rightful Alternian Empress Feferi, the hunt for the rebellion led by Captain Karkat Vantas draws close.(this is a sequel toStow Away)
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Jade Harley/Feferi Peixes, Kanaya Maryam & Karkat Vantas, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam
Series: sea of stars [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/838662
Comments: 24
Kudos: 69





	1. what kind of luck i have that i could be anywhere but i'm right here

**Author's Note:**

> !!this fic won't make much sense if you haven't read Stow Away so i recommend reading that first!! sorry for the spoiler right there in the summary if you haven't yet ksjdghfks
> 
> the chapter lyric is from "Atlanta" by Go! Child
> 
> the end note has so much rambling so for now i'll just say, i hope you enjoy this first chapter!

_ Months in the past, but not many… _

A young adult troll, still a bit green around the gills (proverbially) but clearly highly respected military as his well-pressed uniform with tasteful gold accents suggests, stands face-to-face with one of his biggest fears. Something that can make or break him, lead him into notoriety or erase him from history with just a word. Or rather, he stands face to face with a door.

The door is opulent. Exceedingly so. There is absolutely no reason for a golden door to be entirely inlaid with diamonds. It matches the similarly sparkling walls and furniture in front of the Condesce's office. It's too much for even a violetblood to appreciate. Perhaps it's a royal thing and he's just a touch too warm to understand, not enough salt water in the thinkpan to grasp the sophisticated décor.

Whatever. The door doesn't matter. It's what's behind the door that will decide the fate of Eridan Ampora.

He slicks his hair back, adjusts the thin gold chains wrapped around his horns, and then tries his best not to look as if he’s nervously fidgeting. Looking his best won't save him from a trident to the thorax but it calms him. Centers him. He is only a step below The Condesce anyway, as the general of her army. At just over eleven sweeps, he is the youngest commander in Alternian history; there are a galaxy’s worth of conquests under his belt and plenty of admiration from the lowest rustbloods to his own peers. Even the Condesce herself must respect him if she requested to speak to him face-to-face. He is an esteemed and permanent fixture in her ranks. 

He refuses to acknowledge the fact that the news he has is bad news. He will be fine.

The thick, heavy door in between himself and the most powerful being in the surrounding solar systems gives him the confidence to think so, but still he glances around warily. When the door creaks open Eridan nearly jumps out of his skin, swallowing thickly as an indigoblood holds the golden door and gestures for him to enter. No hesitance would be tolerated and he glides in with all of the grace and bravery he can muster.

And there she is. He sees her heels first, twelve inches long and dagger sharp, kicked up on her huge desk. Wild tangles of hair hang down the back of her plush chair, snaking around the desk and taking up a not negligible portion of the expansive room. Massive horns grow from the onyx curls, almost reaching the ceiling.

Her Imperious Condescension is painting her nails.

She doesn't look up, even as Eridan marches in and bows low. He holds the bow for what seems like minutes before The Condesce speaks.

“C'mere. You betta be bringing me some good news, minnow.”

Eridan swallows again, throat dry. He resists the urge to slick his hair back again, keeping his hands firmly clasped behind his back.

“W-well, your majesty,” -shit, that stupid accent he could never entirely smooth out is grating on his ears, so obviously unsophisticated and immature, he's facing The Condesce for fuck's sake- “we were able to chase them to a cluster of systems just outside your conquests,” he says carefully. 

“And you charged in there with guns blazing and took em out, right?” The Condesce asks sweetly, looking up from her manicure. “Obtained the prize and culled the rest. That is what you're saying, right?”

Deep breaths. “No, your majesty. We lost them when our ships were attacked by the union of planets they escaped into.”

The Condesce sighs, disappointed. Picks up her fuchsia nail polish bottle and carefully replaces the cap before hurling it at Eridan hard enough to knock him back when it hits his shoulder. It shatters and stains his military uniform a glimmering pink. He clenches his jaw and tries not to let it show that his shoulder may possibly be broken and was absolutely bruised.

Her Imperious Condescension stands, hands on hips and lips pressed tight together. “That ain't the news I wanted,” she says, her tone far too sweet for the words she says.

Eridan bows his head. “I swear to you, my empress, I will bring them down and bring your heiress back. I swear to it on my life.”

_ The present. _

After a year of intergalactic travel, during which she had visited more planets than she had ever imagined, honed the powers she had once thought were as strong as possible, and traveled countless stellar miles chased by the armies of an enraged empress, Rose Lalonde is pretty sure she's seen it all.

That isn't to say she's grown bored or complacent; in fact, she revels in the knowledge she's gathered. There was once a time that she thought she would spend her life on Earth, spending her days writing and living a quiet life.

The thought of a quiet life now bores her to tears.

The starship around her rattles, the hissing of the landing gear engaging audible even from inside. The feeling of real planetary gravity is just as unsettling as it always is at first. Trolls loiter around the unloading bay, chattering in Alternian as they wait to disembark. Since Feferi’s rescue, the number of humans aboard the Signless had decreased until she, Dave, Jade, and John were among the six or so remaining Earthlings on board, not including Bec. Their numbers were bolstered by crew of several other species, some with numbers so few on Earth that Rose had never encountered them before. Some were from planets under Alternian rule and had just as much drive for freedom as the trolls.

Feferi is easy to spot in the crowd. Her already impressive height is only made more intimidating by her long, gently curving horns that nearly scrape the high ceiling. Her wrists glitter with gold and burst with colored bracelets, a gold circlet shining on her forehead. She looks every bit the Empress she rightfully is, and the trolls all give her a respectful distance. However, the way she smiles warmly and flaps her facial fins as she speaks to Jade more than softens any given authoritativeness a highblood would have.

A hand slides into Rose's and she looks up to see the face of Kanaya Maryam. She smiles excitedly, her jade-painted lips shiny and inviting. Rose can't help but steal a quick kiss. 

Even though months have passed since she and Kanaya had become, as Dave put it, the most iconic space lesbian couple, Rose still can't help but be stunned by her own good luck. Kanaya is lovely; both warm and sharp, at once as firm as steel and as soft as velvet. Rose can't believe she can call Kanaya her own.

“Are you excited?” she asks, wrapping her arm around Rose's shoulder. “This is a planet we haven't visited yet and I'm sure there will be much to see.”

“Definitely,” Rose says. “Not to mention it will be nice to be out of a fifty-foot range of Dave and Karkat's constant old-couple-esque bickering.”

Kanaya laughs. “I have to agree. In fact, I had just left them yelling on the command deck. I'm not even sure what they were arguing about.”

“It's always a mystery,” Rose sighs fondly. Another one of the many benefits presented by the situation was a strengthened familial bond between herself and her brother. Their upbringing had been one of forced separation, split between two cold and uncaring guardians and several hundred miles, but now they were closer than ever.

As if summoned by Rose's thoughts, Dave arrives on the deck, the angry captain and the much taller John in tow. Despite their constant annoyance with each other, John and Karkat worked rather closely with John acting as Karkat's recruitment agent on allied planets. While they were both natural leaders, John had a friendlier approach that Karkat clearly found enviable. When Rose had pointed out Karkat’s obvious jealousy she was met with nothing but an instant barrage of swears, which to her was just as good as an agreement.

Dave often watched the arguments between his best friend and his boyfriend take place with an air of invested amusement. Rose couldn't fault him because she did the same.

"Alright, chucklefucks!" Karkat yells into the crowded docking bay. "We aren't here to dick around. We restock, refuel, and spread the word among those who have expressed interest. This planet has a roughly Alternian day-night cycle. We're touching down mid-morning and we're taking off at sunset. I will not hesitate to leave your sorry asses here with these diurnal bastards if you're not back in time."

A good natured grumble rolls through the crowd. Dave stands behind him and raises his hands placatingly.

"Don't worry y'all, Karkat and I will be out and probably slink back to the ship like schoolkids caught making out under the bleachers seconds before Sollux lifts off. If anyone's looking to rob the ship's treasury, today would be-  _ oof _ ."

He's cut off by Karkat gently elbowing him in the stomach.

"We don't have a fucking treasury and this planet doesn't use currency anyway," he says.

"Fuck yeah, space communism."

With a hiss of fresh air filling the space, the bay doors opened and anything else Karkat could have said to regain control of the situation was drowned out by an excited clamor towards the exit.

Kanaya and Rose kept their hands firmly clasped together, giggling as they are pulled along by the excited crew. Almost as soon as they're free of the ship, they were no longer surrounded. People scattered throughout the outdoor landing area and made their way towards town.

The city they find themselves near is best described as quaint. The buildings are made of an oddly smooth material akin to wood and had no harsh angles. Despite the sunlight, stars still glitter in the golden sky. The desert is interspersed with neon plants that grow stories in height. The citizens watch them curiously, and Rose studies them back just as unabashedly. They are taller than humans, with single-colored eyes, dark skin in varied jewel tones, and more often than not wearing wide-brimmed hats that protected their hairless heads. They're ethereally pretty and captivating, but Rose wonders if she isn't just enamored by the excitement of the otherworldly. 

On the topic of otherworldly beauty, Kanaya looks entirely in her element in the heat. Loose fitting pants and a tank top show off her muscular arms, thick thighs, and well rounded curves in a way that keeps Kanaya cool and that Rose greatly appreciates. She pulls a hat from her sylladex and Rose resolves to get herself one as a souvenir as well. 

"Where to, then?" Kanaya asks, looking around with a smile. “Shall we pursue business or pleasure first?”

A million romantic ideas flash through Rose's head; a simple walk as they chat is a classic, or perhaps they could find a restaurant or something similar to sit down and enjoy each other's company. Any day spent with Kanaya, even a day underneath a trillion-watt sun that promised a sunburn, was heaven. 

Her dreams were shattered by a friendly, brotherly clap on her shoulder.

"What's the plan, what's on the dossier today, gaydies?" asks Dave with a shit-eating grin and wiggling eyebrows over his dark sunglasses.

"We can't do this again, Dave," Rose says flatly. "Last time we were planetside, Kanaya and I were practically mid-makeout before you and Karkat got the hint."

Dave hmmed. "I don't recall that, do you Karkat?"

"Yes!" Karkat yelled, sounding exquisitely uncomfortable. It would almost be worth letting Dave and Karkat tag along if only to put them both through the embarrassment of being a combined third wheel.

Kanaya, however, has a touch more mercy in her heart. "Rose and I planned to go clothes shopping first, you are welcome to join us."

Karkat and Dave share a look.

"Shit, wait, I really gotta find some kinda compatible cord for my phone that can hook up to the ship first, Sollux said if I found one he'd let me control the ship's music-"

"He said fucking  _ what- _ "

"But we'll definitely catch up with y'all later."

Rose watches with satisfaction as they turn on their heels and, with as much speed as socially acceptable, walk towards the town.

Kanaya threads her fingers between Rose's and they begin walking at a leisurely pace. Rose spares a glance backwards at the ship that has housed her for the past year and brought her towards unimaginable destinations, through gunfire and star fields, and into the arms of the love of her life. From the outside it seems almost tiny.

A movement ahead catches Rose's eye. A slight figure in a gray hoodie darts between two buildings, leaving neon trails in its wake. 

Sollux. He touches a wall and leaves a faint mark, one that Rose knows acts as a universal recruitment poster. It leads the curious towards another spot, then another, then finally towards a frustratingly vague bit of information that further leads down a rabbit hole of anti-Alternian empire literature. They're in an unaligned sector, but one that bordes a recent Alternian conquest. A sector ripe for recruitment and education. 

Rose notes other crewmates around as well. Nepeta ducks into the space between two rounded buildings, bleeding into the shadows but her teeth flashing as she speaks with an unseen confidante. Terezi leans on Vriska's arm, seemingly playing up her helpless blind woman shtick as they make their way towards the center of town. Several others drag hovering or rolling trolleys soon to be laden with supplies into the outdoor marketplace. Kanaya has a backpack ready to be filled with local medicines and a notebook to make note of obscure healing techniques. Rose herself carries several books in a myriad of languages that tell the stories of Alternian rebellion and the Empire's cruelty, to be slipped onto the shelves of whatever library she may pass.

But still, they hold hands. Vriska grins at a whispered comment from Terezi. Nepeta takes a moment to stretch her claws towards the sun. Sollux stops to ogle local technology. 

That was how the crew of The Signless lived their lives. They steal moments of levity, they laugh and bond before laying down their lives for the cause.

Rose can safely say she had never before felt such comradery.

"I truly appreciate an open-air marketplace," Kanaya muses as they enter the town proper. Brightly colored canopies of stitched together leaves cover the myriad of stalls in stained glass shadows. Tables are covered in things Rose couldn't imagine a purpose for. The citizens trade freely, bartering with their own wares or with promises and favors. 

"I'd love to live somewhere like this one day," Rose says. "When I'm old and the universe is at peace, of course."

Kanaya smiles. "As would I, after the Empress is torn limb from gaudy limb."

"Naturally."

As they walk hand in hand through the warm, crowded streets, Rose takes in what she can. The cloth that hangs over the open booths casts tinted shadows over the wares that Kanaya takes great interest in. Rose, even with her vast and widespread knowledge, can hardly keep up with Kanaya's rapidfire excitement as she explains the possible uses for local flora. She allows herself to be pulled along, and to enjoy the fleeting moment of being carefree.

"The safety provided by peacefully allowing the Alternian empire to have a base on our planet cannot be overstated," says a man who, if Karkat's expression is any indication, is mere moments from being throttled.

"Safety means jack shit if you're just being worked to death building her ships so she can, no fucking exaggeration, go murder entire planets full of people."

Dave is proud of Karkat for keeping his cool, relatively speaking. The small room is packed with people, most of whom seem important. They carry themselves with dignity despite their worried glances and attempts to keep their faces covered and heads down. Karkat, despite being one of the shortest in the room, commands their attention.

"Will your rebellion keep us safe from the Empress?" someone else speaks up.

"That's what I'm negotiating for right fucking now."

"Then give us solid proof!"

The room dissolves into shouting. So many voices and yet Dave can pick out Karkat's without effort. Whether that's a familiarity thing or a volume thing is unclear.

A sudden gust causes several people to stumble, and several others who weren't able to brace themselves on nearby furniture fall gracelessly to the floor. The room is silent as papers flutter across tabletops.

"Listen, I know we don't have a lot of time to spend here and it is kind of a big deal to decide to stand up to a whole intergalactic empire," John says as he smiles in that endearing way of his, "but I think it's worth it! I mean, of course, since I am part of the rebellion and all. But I know that taking down the Empress, or at the very least standing up to her, will help everyone! Not to mention that you won’t be working alone. You guys will keep your freedom and gain trading partners, there will be fewer resources for her, and we will have a place to refuel and trade."

John speaks so earnestly and excitedly that Dave can see the expressions of those who were mere moments ago ready to lay prostrate at the feet of the Empress turning thoughtful. His impromptu speech was genuine enough to turn the tides in their favor, Dave is sure. That was often the case, John is just naturally charming.

Karkat, charming and charismatic in his own way, speaks up again.

"That's basically what I said before, but thanks, Egbert. And it's not like we'll be leaving you without defense. There's a whole system of rebellion planets who protect and help each other. I'll leave details with whoever's leading this place."

"That would be me," says a taller alien who had been observing from the sidelines, bowing their head. "I am the councilor for this particular city. Captain Vantas. You and your crew's words ring true and, if our planetary council should agree, we would be honored to take part in your efforts against the Alternian regime."

"Thank you," Karkat says with a nod. There is a subtle shift as he addresses the leader, a confident stillness he exudes when talking to someone in power. Respectful and sure, but guarded.

Dave is staring at Karkat and no longer paying attention to the no doubt extremely important and groundbreaking exchange. It's rare for him to see Karkat address leaders outside of the rebellion. Despite being Karkat’s personal bodyguard, most meetings took place behind closed doors in hushed whispers. His formality fits him like a brand new well tailored suit- perfectly sized but uncomfortably stiff.

As soon as Dave checks back into the conversation, people began filing out of the low ceilinged room. Karkat looks at him with narrowed eyes.

"How much of that did you miss while sniffing your own bulge?"

"Gross," Dave says. “I didn’t need to catch that though because I was very focused on protecting you from stray bullets or assassins or a really rude word with the power to stop your heart so you’re fuckin’ welcome.”

"Not a reassuring answer, dicknips."

"I caught the important parts. You yelling, John doing whatever John does when faced with conflict, you turning another society in our favor against Fishbitch Supreme. This is like the nine-to-five mundanity to me, dude. I can check out whenever I damn well please."

Their hands find each other without thought, linking them together as they blend into the throngs of people in the streets. Dave spots Kanaya in passing, Rose nowhere in sight and no doubt planting information. Sollux spots Karkat and the two exchange a nod, his job done. He half-hears Terezi's grating laughter in the distance. 

Things are going well for everyone, it seems. But anxiety still punched its way into Dave's chest with concerning speed. These operations were so delicate when it came down to it, so many factors and people in motion with so many jobs, a million things could go wrong and the threat of bloodshed was constantly present. And Dave was a murderer anyway, what if he snapped and hurt someone, what if Karkat got hurt, or Rose or John or Jade, what if-

Karkat had stopped walking. His face is ashen and his eyes are wide, the red irises lost in a sea of gold. Dave looks around frantically as others around seem to scatter with rising terror. Sounds seem far away, lost in a rush of his own blood in his ears and panicked half-formed thoughts.

"Karkat, what the fuck is happening?" Dave says, his voice rising.

Karkat snaps out of his terrified trance and grips Dave's arm with enough force to bruise.

"We need to go. Right now."

The streets are oddly terse as Rose exits the library. What was once a marketplace full of buoyant chatter is now a sea of empty stalls and people with a single minded determination to get anywhere else.

She couldn't see Kanaya. The stall where she had been browsing is empty. 

Her heart pounds and she begins pushing her way through the crowds, fighting against the flow of agitated bodies as her own panic rises.

A hand grabs hers. Fear and hope bloom in her chest, both extinguished as she meets Nepeta's large, slit-pupiled eyes.

"Emergency takeoff," she says, voice unsteady. 

"What is happening?" Rose asks desperately as Nepeta leads her through back alleys.

"This city's been compromised," she says miserably. "Pawsibly the whole planet."

The wind figuratively knocked out of her, she bites back the hundreds of other questions that threaten to spill forth. She notices several other crewmates around her in similar states of confused distress as they approach The Signless. 

She searches for Kanaya's horns above the crowd, to no avail.

"We are taking off in one fucking minute," Karkat shouts from inside the ship as Rose is pulled through the doors. "This isn't a fucking drill, this is a goddamn emergency and I am not playing around."

Rose pushes past the terrified captain and stands on top of several stacked crates just inside the loading bay. Still, she can't find Kanaya. She runs towards the medbay, her chest burning with exertion and worry. Her mind is whited out in blind panic as the glass doors slide open to reveal an empty room.

And then the floor begins to shake.

"No," she whispers. 

The artificial gravity kicks in a moment later, along with the atmosphere stabilization that signals a steep ascension into space. She feels heavy for a moment, either from the weight of her fear or the sudden upward climb of The Signless as it leaves the planet, and the love of her life, behind.


	2. you can sleep in a coffin but the past ain't through with you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise! for the foreseeable future this fic will update weekly as opposed to the planned biweekly. i feel like rn we need all some more wholesome content jsgdfkjd plus i hope this pushes me to finish this fic before quarantine is lifted otherwise i just won't finish it and that'd suck
> 
> warnings for this chapter: some violence

Karkat could recognize that highblooded, panrotted, bootlicking face painted motherfucker from a mile away, even as the chucklevoodoos clawed their way into his pan and began dragging up his worst fears and putting them on display. Gamzee Fucking Makara. One of the few friends he had in the past that chose his place in the Alternian hierarchy over Karkat, or perhaps he chose sopor over either and knew  _ The Signless _ would be lacking in supply 

The outcome is the same either way.

Karkat takes a deep breath as the room around him buzzes fearfully. Dave is giving him a concerned and confused look that makes him want to pull him aside and tell him everything will be okay.

But he doesn't, and it won't. He takes one more deep breath that doesn't calm his nerves in the slightest and begins yelling.

"We are compromised."

The room goes dead silent. Grim expressions on ashen faces surround him and for a moment the weight of their combined despair shakes him. He's led them through hell a thousand times over but never has he been close enough to the Empress's top forces to have his mind nearly shredded by chucklevoodoos, to have his crew put in such immediate danger of being captured. It was one thing to fall to the drones, but another altogether to be imprisoned. At least the drones’ brutality meant a quick end. 

"The whole damn planet may have been compromised, we can't know for certain. Right now, Sollux is gearing up for a lightspeed jump that will take us halfway across the fucking galaxy, hopefully before whatever fishbitch's forces can-"

"Kanaya is missing," Rose interrupts urgently, her breath labored as she tears into the loading bay and through the gathered crew. "She's not on the ship Karkat, we have to go back right now!"

Karkat had never seen Rose afraid. Upset, yes. Terrified to the point where her weird lavender-purple eyes are surrounded by oceans of white and her spotted skin is nearly gray with worry, not even fucking close. Karkat's own breath, which he never managed to fully catch once the chucklevoodoos set in, is knocked out of him.

"Fuck," he spits, and begins running for the command deck.

The planet, in its orange and blue glory, is still far too close. It takes up most of one fully transparent wall. Sollux, glowing slightly, zips across the room in a frenzy, dozens of screens and holograms flashing and displaying information at a pace Karkat could never hope to keep up with even at his best.

"Stop!" Karkat yells. 

Sollux hesitates and turns. "What? We have to go. There’s at least one Alternian signal down there, we can’t know how many more-"

" _ Kanaya _ is down there, we-  _ I  _ fucking left her behind," Karkat says, anguished. Sollux's eyes widen.

"Shit, okay. We have to get out of here two hours ago and we can't go back so soon, but what I can do is get us out of contact range and cloak us."

The idea of leaving Kanaya down there, alone for an indeterminate amount of time, makes Karkat sick. But the rest of the crew watches on with faces drawn in fear. He knows they would risk going back if he gave the order, if not for him then for Kanaya. How many would die if he went back now, while Gamzee and whoever was with him was almost certainly acutely aware of their presence and lack of plan?

“Do it.”

“There’s a planet with a few moons nearby, uninhabited but covered in storms if my preliminary scans are right, and they are…”

He's mostly talking to himself after a certain point, and Karkat watches nervously as the planet begins shrinking. Dave and Rose join him after a moment, Dave grabbing Karkat's hand. Rose wraps her arms around herself and watches the distance grow with dismay. 

"I can't believe I didn't even look ahead for this trip," she says quietly, voice wavering. "I've become complacent."

Dave takes a step forward, nearly bouncing with nervous sympathy. "It was such a routine thing, we've pulled this mission a million times it’s like getting fuckin’ brunch or some shit, you couldn't have known-"

"I  _ could _ have known," Rose snaps through gritted teeth, each word angrily enunciated. "Unless you've forgotten, Dave, that I'm supposed to be a fucking Seer."

"I didn't forget!" Dave says desperately. "Of course I didn't, but nobody asked you to look into the future for this. Nobody fucking expected to find Alternian forces here in the middle of goddamn nowhere, they were supposed to be distracted! You can't beat yourself up over this."

Rose laughs once, a joyless exclamation. "Oh, I can."

Dave seems to wilt hopelessly. The tension in the room feels like enough to strangle Karkat where he stands, on top of the abject fear.

"This is my fault too," Karkat says after a moment, uncharacteristically quiet. "I'm the fucking captain, I should always be the last one on the ship after my crew. I didn't take a headcount, I left behind my moirail and medical officer. If anyone is to blame, it's me."

Rose shoots him a look, something torn between agreeing and argumentative. Sollux huffs from the navigation panel.

"Can you pause the pity party for two seconds? I got us out of range in record time, you're fucking welcome, and have the ship on low power lock down. We're also cloaked to hell and back, and drifting in the shadow of a moon two planets away. We can stay here for twenty four hours and then send a stealth ship back to pick up Kanaya."

It's hard to tell with his uniformly colored eyes, but his whole demeanor suggests an eye roll.

"We have plans for this kind of thing, dipshits. KA will be fine. Seriously, if anyone ever tried to fuck with her they would be out cold in a second."

"Why do we have to wait?" Rose asks. "We could send a stealth ship now while she's still near our takeoff point."

"There's definitely some kind of watch for unidentified ships," Karkat points out. "Not to mention the Alternians searching for us now that they know we're nearby. We need to let everything die down as much as possible before we even look in that direction again."

"We can't just wait here!" Rose argues.

"We have to!" Karkat yells. "Holy shit, do you think I  _ want _ to sit here with my thumb up my nook for the next day and hope that Kanaya doesn't leave town or get fucking captured? We can't rush back in and put everyone in danger."

He knows without even having to look that the bond between Kanaya and Rose is one of the strongest possible, a healthy braid between the two that must feel like anguish to have pulled so tightly by distance and circumstance. He understands. His own bond with Kanaya, though far different and entirely platonic in nature, was strong, and it seemed to tug him back towards the shrinking planet. But he feels the ship too, its web of bonds and relationships and lives. And he knows Kanaya’s strength.

Rose's expression tightens. "What if it were Dave down there? Would you wait then?"

Dave exhales as if punched, and a look of regret crosses Rose's face. The anger bubbles up quickly, the audacity of using Dave as a hypothetical bargaining chip, the implied choice between his boyfriend and his best friend, stings. But he clenches his fists and stares Rose down silently.

"I-I didn't mean that," she says quickly, looking away. "I'm just… I'm terrified."

Dave stays silent, a fact Karkat notes to unpack later, when tensions lower.

"I'm not waiting because I want to," Karkat says curtly. "You know Kanaya has been my closest goddamn friend for sweeps. Fucking hell, I wish I could go down there right the fuck now and get her, empire be damned. But we both know Kanaya can handle herself for a day. This is what I have to do for the safety of the entire fucking crew,  _ including _ Kanaya. We will go back to get her tomorrow."

With that, Karkat stalks away towards the navigation panel and watches Sollux begin preemptively cloaking the stealth ship until he hears Rose and Dave leave. He ignores the twisting guilt and fear in his stomach as the timer counts down.

Kanaya grimly watches the ship bolt into the sky from the middle of the suddenly empty town. She can feel the lingering fear like a purple grime. A pain untouchable and incurable to her, but one she senses nonetheless. Hopelessness threatens to overtake her, but she squares her shoulders and begins threading her way through town.

Step one when cast adrift on seas of uncertainty- stay put. One of the buildings, now duller with a haze of residual chucklevoodoos, has to be an inn or hostel of some sort. And surely there is some trade she can make to ensure the silence of its owner until she can be found again.

Step two is to wait. Agonizing hours of waiting for someone on the crew to find her, hopefully before whoever was abusing their chucklevoodoos can.

_ Whoever, _ she thinks bitterly.  _ We all know damn well who is after us.  _ It was a personal, targeted attack to send Gamzee after the rebellion, and could only be facilitated by someone who knew a majority of the group along with its leader well. She can only hope that they got away safely.

Her mind turns to Rose, of Rose being chased by the empire, and she grits her teeth against the rising panic. If she were to begin panicking she fears she will never stop, and now is not the time to lose herself in the throes of fear.

The first public building she finds with an unlocked door is a bar and inn. Convenient and welcome in trying circumstances. The person behind the counter stares Kanaya down with undisguised distrust and she can’t bring herself to feel offended.

“I will treat you and everyone in the building in exchange for a discreet place to sleep tonight,” Kanaya says evenly. Even standing at her full imposing height, her horns only just surpass the owner’s height. It didn’t change her chances of success, she’s sure, but having even an inch of control over the situation grounds her.

“You are… an alien physician?” they ask with narrowed eyes.

“I have certain powers that allow me to treat any being, but in basic terms yes- I am a physician. I am also skilled enough in herbalism that I can offer advice in medical matters that can be used long after I’m gone.” It felt odd to offer her own powers and knowledge for trade, but she has little else to give. In fact, she had deliberately traveled lightly in order to stock up on new and helpful medicines. She didn’t even have her chainsaw, and she feels its absence dearly. 

With a final thorough once over, the owner nods and gives Kanaya a simple metal key. “Your room is on the third floor, last in the hall. Please keep an ear out, I may be sending a few patients your way.”

Kanaya felt a tickle of concern, but nodded her thanks regardless. Beggars could not be choosers, and a place to sleep was a place where she could pass the time in dreams until she’s rescued.

“That cleared the freaks out quickly enough,” Eridan says with a sniff. Gamzee stands behind him, silent and placid. It wasn’t quite the reaction Eridan was hoping for, ideally a mob would have made a few of the traitors easy pickings, but it would suffice. The rebels are surely scattered and would be easy enough to pick apart one by one until they offered Feferi and their leader back on a silver platter.

Eridan ignores his gut twist with disconcert as he imagines Karkat dead by his hands. No matter, one mutant dead was a bonus if it came down to it. In fact it would be much better for him if Karkat and his crew died, fewer people to remember that there was a time when he was friends with the heretic.

Eridan spits and shoulders his gun. “Let’s go.”

Most buildings are locked, the occasional flash of eyes quickly obscured when met by Eridan’s gold and violet. The third building is some sort of shop, and one of its occupants shouts something in its language. Eridan does not appreciate the tone. They are quickly apologetic when he shoots the door open and demands through the smoke to know where any Alternians were. One, shaking and wide eyed, gestures down the street toward another public building.

Eridan smirks. It is so easy to intimidate the animals on these backwater planets. So easy to get the answers he needs, one step closer to his goal. He is an expert at getting what he wants, tearing barriers down until he had the information he needed. It was an invaluable skill for his climb to the top.

The building is a shithole tavern of sorts, the door already unlocked. He does not holster his weapon, and its keeper looks nervous.

“You have a criminal in one of your rooms. Tell me where and I’ll leave you livin’.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” it says blankly. 

Eridan levels his gun at its chest. “Try again.”

“T-third floor,” it whimpers. “Just knock, she’s expecting patients.”

Patients. It must be their healer, Kanaya Maryam. Figures, she was one of the few who ever gave a damn about Eridan, right up until Karkat twisted her up in his doomed rebellion. Maybe he could get some clemency for her, keep her as his ship’s healer instead.

Either way, the rebellion would be losing a vital asset today.

He gestures for Gamzee to wait by the door. He simply smiled. Eridan can feel the residual tendrils of his dark fear powers gathering in the corners of the room. As a highblood it was easy for him to shake off, but it would be getting to the inkeep soon enough.

Eridan makes his way up to the third floor almost casually. The enemy is unaware and alone. Kanaya is a midblood and a Sylph at that, hardly anything special. She would move or die at the barrel of his rifle without putting a scratch on him.

He knocks politely. The door opens a crack, and he forces it open with a loud thud against the wall. 

Kanaya’s hiss sharpens to a piercing warning whine as she bares her teeth to the gums, but Eridan does not flinch. The recognition in her eyes does not dull her ferocity. It had been sweeps since Eridan had seen Kanaya, and nostalgia pinged in his bloodpusher. He really didn’t want to kill her.

“Long time no see, Kan,” he says with a grin. 

“You have three seconds before I begin tearing you limb from icy limb,” Kanaya growls.

Eridan’s grin widened. “Who has the gun h-”

Kanaya drops suddenly and lashes out with a heavy booted foot. It connects to Eridan’s knee and stumbles him for a moment. She is on her feet again in a flash and making her way for the door behind him, but Eridan is much better prepared. He grabs her by the neck and turns his glare on her. Any pleasant feelings were quickly snuffed under his bruising grip.

“Nice try, you wiley-”

A sudden slashing pain across his face cuts him off mid-taunt. She clawed him, aiming to gouge out an eye. He growls in pain and drops her instinctively. Blood is flowing down his face, salty and cold against the anger boiling up inside of him. He blinks through the violet blood and hisses. Not only did she not let him finish a single damn sentence, she did not hesitate to go for his eyes. There’s no saving her now, he reasons.

She was fast, but not fast enough to make it to the window she clearly hoped would lead to her safety. Like a caged animal she fled for illogical, hopeless escape routes. In a moment, Eridan recovers enough to take aim at her fleeing back.

And fire.

For a second, all Kanaya knows is pain. It is a jet of fire through her core she can taste in the back of her throat, metallic and hot. She falls heavily to the floor and does not move. Every nerve ending screams for release or escape but she can’t even close her eyes. She watches as her own blood begins seeping into the wood floor around her.

But she does not die. Through sheer force of will or something deep inside of her that struggles to take hold, she keeps herself aware.

In her awareness, she notes that her bloodpusher is no longer beating. 

The only sound in the room is labored breathing, not her own, and a muttered curse. Heavy footfalls stop next to her and a jostle lets her know that she has just been kicked. Primal rage begins to burn, hotter than the bullet wound through her body.

Eridan says nothing as he lifts Kanaya from the floor, but she feels oddly vindicated as he makes a grunt of exertion. So much for violetblood strength. She watches the floor, notes the jade green blood splatters she leaves behind. Her blood seemed to glow just slightly as it fell, but dulled by the time it reached the floor.

Gamzee waited oh-so patiently in the lobby. There was a smear of blood on the countertop, no doubt belonging to the poor innkeep. Guilt would have turned Kanaya’s stomach if it were not for the fact that she is now little more than a very stubborn consciousness trapped in a chrysalis of a body soon to turn.

She has the thought, belatedly, that of course she would be fine. Jadebloods are far from powerless, and she even less so. Her body, broken as it is, was healing itself and reworking its cells into something beautiful and terrifying.

And Eridan was bringing her right back to his ship.

If anyone were to look at the apparent corpse of Kanaya Maryam, they would see a momentary twitch of her upper lip, revealing a single ivory fang as if she were smirking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please please please leave a comment if you enjoyed :D


	3. who but the sharp-dressed woman with a dull chainsaw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for this chapter: canon-typical violence, minor character death

Rose did not sleep. Dread fills her with a frantic, nauseating energy that keeps her pacing the command deck. The assumed uninhabited planet outside the window took up so much of the view. The planet they so recently escaped from was nowhere to be seen, and the distance between her and Kanaya felt like stitch pulled taught.

A sigh from the navigator’s seat. Sollux turns to look at Rose over his red-and-blue glasses with an unimpressed stare. 

“It’s really fucking hard to do what I need to to keep us out of range but close enough to ge there quickly in--” he glances at the countdown-- “twelve hours with you musing and sighing. You’ve been up here since we started idling and nothing. Has. Changed. Go away.”

Rose narrows her eyes. “I have every right to be here,” she states. “Though I shall attempt to panic in a less disruptive manner if it suits you, Navigator.”

“Would you?” Sollux fires back. “That’d be great, thanks.”

Rose refuses to leave. She does, however, pull out her crystal ball. It had been cracked on the mission to save Feferi but its cool weight was the same as it always was. It focused and ground her, despite being lightyears away from the ground it was once pulled from and shaped on.

She does not enter a trance. In a moment she could know everything, how Kanaya is doing and how her rescue would go. It would be strategically smart to go in knowing as much as she could.

But she can’t. Not yet. To be alone in the knowledge she gleans from the future scares her. The idea that she could see Kanaya dead, and know that no matter what she or anyone does in the hours leading to her demise, shakes her to her core.

She stands up to pace again and Sollux growls. “Sit still!”

“Just because you’re too heartless to give a shit doesn’t mean I am outside of my rights to worry,” Rose snaps. and Sollux freezes.

“You think I don’t give a shit?” he asks dully. Rose’s jaw tightens as Sollux turns to face her and the dark circles under his eyes are on full display. “I’ve known KA for sweeps, lifetimes longer than you’ve known her. You’re her mate and that’s nothing to be ignored but she’s my friend too. Hell, good luck finding anyone on this piece of shit ship who isn’t friendly with her. We’re all worried, you aren’t special.”

He sits back down heavily and begins swiping and tapping on the screens again. All the anger and fight seems to leave Rose in an instant. The silence is no longer tense, just heavily morose. She knows Kanaya is well loved, it was hard not to feel comfortable around her. She knows how lucky she is to be Kanaya’s girlfriend. She can’t imagine Kanaya would be particularly happy with Rose picking petty fights on her behalf while everyone was so tense.

She turns to leave, but hesitates.

“I know you aren’t heartless,” she says. 

“No shit. I have two.”

“What?”

“And by the way,” he looks over his shoulder at her, “I know KA’s voice well enough that if she were dead, I would know even from here. If anything changes, I’ll tell you first.”

Unable to say anything, Rose nods. It’s more kindness than Sollux needs to show, more than she feels she deserves, and she is grateful despite the grim message.

The trek back to the room she shares with Kanaya feels cold. Part of her dreads stepping foot into their room, void of Kanaya’s presence. Her absence seems to follow her, past the darkened medbay and through the silent recreation room. She sees it in the worried faces she walks by, in the whispers that quiet as she passes.

As she passes a row of bedrooms, a door slides open. Jade looks entirely unsurprised to see her and does not hesitate to pull Rose into a crushing hug. It’s almost too much for how fragile Rose feels, but she returns the hug regardless. If Jade notes her lack of enthusiasm she does not comment, instead pulling her into her room without a word.

Its layout is identical to the one she and Kanaya share, with its two armchairs, single large bed, and sturdy metal end tables, down to the benches and small shelf of a table folded into the wall and the tiny bathroom tucked away next to the closet. The only real difference is the plethora of posters and plushies that Jade and Feferi had somehow collectively amassed in a rather short amount of time, and the large white dog that laid across the pillows at the head of the bed.

Feferi, the rightful empress of the entire Alternian race, sits criss-crossed on the chair, braiding her yards and yards of hair. A plush lobster regards Rose dully from her lap. Rose knew how formidable both Jade and Feferi could be, but the softness of their room hides their power well. If Rose didn’t know any better, she would consider it a fantastic tactic to throw any potential attackers off.

“How are you doing?” Jade asks, sitting on the end of the bed and inviting Rose to do the same. Bec moves so his head is resting between the two of them, and Rose begins absently stroking his fur.

“As well as expected,” Rose says dryly. “My head is killing me but whenever I think about closing my eyes for just a moment of rest, I get a rush of panicked energy. I haven’t slept yet at all.”

Jade looks at her sympathetically. “It won’t be long now,” she says. “Have you tried…?”

“No,” Rose says with a sigh. “And I plan to hold off until I… Until it’s necessary.”

“Kanaya is very  _ cape _ able of taking care of herself,” Feferi adds. and Rose can hear the stress on the water pun. Only Feferi.

“I know,” says Rose. “I shouldn’t worry as much as I am, I trust in her capabilities. I suppose it’s the idea that she is up against a foe I hardly know that keeps me pacing.”

Feferi’s hands slow to a stop. “Well,” she starts, “I can tell you a bit.”

Rose studies Feferi as Jade gets up and sits on the armrest beside her. Only the most basic of information had been passed to her once all the details were gathered and she won’t deny that she wants to know everything she can.

“Since Gamzee is involved, it’s likely that the one the Condesce has sent to retrieve me is an old friend of mine, Eridan Ampora.” She grimaces. “Ah, actually a former moirail. He was obsessed with the hierarchy and with historical battles and generals. I brooke it off eventually, when it became clear our poliseas didn’t quite line up. Not to say he never cared but… at some point he was just too far gone, cod up in his disdain for lowbloods.”

Jade began holding her hand. Feferi blinked and laughed softly. “That’s all personal blubber though, isn’t it? Sorry, I reel-y didn’t expect him pacific-ly to be coming after us.”

“It’s okay Fef, take your time,” Jade says softly, and the irrational, almost jealous twist in Rose’s gut is quickly followed by guilt. She snuck a glance at the wall clock. Eleven hours remain.

“I suppose what matters is that Eridan is seatermined, especially on something so personal. He’s studied a lot too. From what little I heard while on the battleship, Eridan’s her top general, her pet. He’s the youngest ever to reach such a high position. It’s lucky we hadn’t sea-n him sooner actually.” Feferi smiles wanly and sighs. “He could have been better, ya know? When we were kids he was a history nerd who bought into propaganda a little too much. There were even times when I thought he was taking what I said into account about the hemospectrum. But I guess I wasn’t firm or convincing enough.”

Rose could see that Feferi was hurt by the betrayal and felt for her, but it was clear that she was getting no more helpful information. She looked away from Jade’s soft touches and swallowed thickly. “Thank you, Feferi. It must have been hard to talk about him so candidly.”

“Of course,” she says as brightly as she could manage. “I wish I could be more helpful but I reel-y haven’t had contact with him since we were young.”

“You were plenty helpful,” Jade says decisively. “Rose, did you want to stay here and nap?”

Jade’s kindness and Feferi’s welcoming smile nearly melts Rose on the spot, but the idea of being there any longer than necessary, to continue to be seen and worried about, felt like too much to bear for much longer.

“I think it would be best for me to get back to my room,” Rose said gently. “I do appreciate the offer though. Thank you both for checking up on me.”

“Of course,” Feferi says as she stands, and Rose notes for the first time that the room is actually laid out slightly different- its ceiling is higher to accommodate her formidable height. That formidable height leans down and hugs Rose lightly. “Bring her back safe, okay?”

“I will,” Rose says, and wipes her eyes before her emotions got the best of her. After one final hug from Jade, she hurries to her room to feel emotions away from pitying eyes.

Of course, nothing is ever so easy for her. Dave leans against the wall beside her door and watches her approach with an air of barely disguised nervousness. As if she needed more feelings warring inside her, guilt bubbles up as well. She knew her comment earlier was unfair, but there was no taking it back now.

“Helllo, Dave,” she says neutrally. 

“Just wanted to make sure you were holdin’ up okay. Shit sucks for you more than I can imagine, like black hole levels of suck compared to, I dunno, a slightly smaller black hole? A real vacuum brand blind test of a situation and you don’t know which is supposed to be stronger because right now it’s all chaos as the world gets ripped up.” he mutters, hands thrust deep within his pockets. It seems he hasn’t slept either. “Point is, Sollux said you finally left the command deck so I figured I’d catch you here and say goodnight or whatever.”

“Or demand an apology,” Rose says. She just can’t help herself lashing out, no matter how shitty it feels.

“No, not demand, I wasn’t even gonna ask I just-”

Rose raises her hand and Dave trails off, annoyed and upset. She truly wants things to be okay between her and Dave, now especially while she feels more alone than she ever has.

“I was wrong. I was an asshole and admittedly am still acting like an asshole,” she says. “I’m afraid but that doesn’t mean I can lash out at you or anyone and I am sorry for what I said.”

It feels like pulling her own teeth. She didn’t grow up around many apologies, and it felt like a script she was forced at gunpoint to read, no matter how genuinely she means it. Dave stares. 

“Damn, apology accepted and super unexpected.”

“Yes, well. One less thing hanging over my head.”

Suddenly she’s exhausted. It’s all been so much in a short period of time and her body aches with the stress she holds. She nods at Dave, who pats her shoulder.

“Real quick before you go to bed,” he says as she steps into her lonely room. “I’ll leave it up to you of course, but you’re first on my list to join the pickup mission. No pressure but I figure you’d want to be there.”

Rose manages a tight smile. “Of course I’ll be joining. I’ll see you then.”

“G’night Rose.”

“Goodnight.”

Night falls suddenly on the alien planet. Kanaya doesn’t see it so much as she feels it, a drastic drop in temperature and an odd surety that the light outside is being reflected as opposed to radiated. It is cold enough that the guard tasked with watching over her body exhales clouds of condensation.

She can sense so much more about them now too; the saltiness of their blood being pushed through their system and the unbothered way they adjust to the lowering temperature tells her without looking that they are a highblood.

She could move now, she thinks, but she can hear so much more now that gives her pause. Eridan is planning a route to the Battleship Condescension, Gamzee is nearby and becoming more agitated by the moment. There seems to be a rather small crew on this vessel, both smaller than _The Signless_ and almost silent in its operation. It is clearly meant for stealth, a dagger to the heart of any planet, or a lithe hunter stalking its prey. She listens and waits for her opportunity.

Distantly she hears Eridan tell his crew to begin takeoff procedures, and Kanaya springs into action. The guard, purpleblooded but seemingly not part of the church nor in tune with any inherent purpleblood powers, doesn’t even gurgle as Kanaya descends upon their throat.

Sinking her fangs into their jugular is perfectly natural for Kanaya, though she has very little time to relish the surge of energy she gets from their blood before she drops the corpse and wrenches the sliding door open. Silently she makes her move toward the center of the ship. She knows where she’s going, and hopes the cameras can see her face dripping purple and her skin glowing vibrantly, violently silver.

The smell of fear and pain, ingrained and constant for longer than she cares to think about, wrenches her bloodpusher as she forces her way through another door.

Biowires writhe around the body, so thin and bloodied, strapped to the command stem of the ship. This was not the first or last helmsman Eridan’s ship had used, but this one was still new. New enough to know who they used to be, and still whimpered a name through their pain. Psionic eyes, mismatched shades of green and almost entirely feral, meet hers for a moment and there’s a halfhearted push before an insistent tug forward.

Kanaya knows instinctively that there was no healing this patient. She thinks of Sollux, of Psiionic on the Battleship Condescension, of the other goldbloods on  _ The Signless _ who escaped such a fate, and her stomach turns. This was not simply unplugging a battery, or removing a patient from life support, this was indelicately tearing the power supply from a machine.

“I’m so sorry,” Kanaya says for a lack of anything else to say. The goldblood looks at her. There is a clarity in their eyes as if they know what Kanaya is here to do and is thankful.

“Le-e-eave me,” they say raggedly in a voice that hardly seemed organic. “Kill, kill me, leave me. Leave me here.”

Kanaya nods. 

Her medical training on top of her Sylph powers give her an intrinsic knowledge of what every organ does and where it is. What every part of the body is weak to. It was not her first choice of study admittedly, but when she was given the chance to escape the caverns on Karkat’s ship, she took it and did what she could to be useful. Rebels get hurt often, and she has the power to help them. Seeing the inside of someone’s body, shifting things on a molecular level to help how she could, was second nature to her now.

It is just as simple for Kanaya to lay a hand on the goldblood’s feverish flesh and reach in to disconnect their panstem from the inside.

All at once, the lights flare and then darken. That in itself is hardly a deterrent, but getting everything back online, without a helmsman, would take time. Not to mention the fact that Kanaya fully intends to take down as many of Eridan’s forces as she can before she would be forced to flee.

She spares one more glance at the dead goldblood. With their face no longer twisted in pain, their age is so much more evident. They were younger than Kanaya, much younger than half the crew of _The Signless_.

It occurs to her that there must be others. As if she needs the complication, she feels the goal of her tirade shifting from vengeance to liberation. She begins stalking through the ship, a beacon of destruction.

The first highblood she meets attacks her with a small chainsaw and she can’t believe her luck as she darts around them, faster than they could blink against her brilliance, and break their neck. The chainsaw doesn’t falter in her hands as she makes her way to the back of the ship, towards the warm smell of lowbloods.

And then Gamzee is in her way, huge and armed with two massive clubs. Vacant eyes stare through her from his painted face and she can’t be entirely sure he’s all there anymore. Her instincts tell her that the sopor had done quite a number on his thinkpan, and his consumption likely wasn’t discouraged. It’s a sad thought, Gamzee had once been an acquaintance. Regardless, he doesn’t hesitate to swing his club at her head. She ducks in time, but the impact against the wall of the ship dents the metal with a resounding clang. He isn’t holding back and neither will she.

As Gamzee is a fully grown purpleblood already on the attack, Kanaya has to dodge more than she feels comfortable. The displaced air from the swings that just barely miss her seems icy. Through his attacks, Kanaya keeps her senses open. There are others on the ship, running through the halls to find her. She wonders if the orders are to kill or to subdue. Gamzee seemingly has no qualms with killing her.

She has no intentions of dying or stopping until she frees the lowblood slaves and tears a path through the ship that Eridan will waste countless weeks repairing, moored on a planet that was already on the defense from Alternians.

Finally, an opening. Gamzee looks down on her and for the first time there’s an expression on his face, a mad grin as he raises both clubs effortlessly with the intent of bringing them both down on her skull. She lunges forward even as the clubs fall, and slashes with the chainsaw.

There are two very distinct thuds as Gamzee falls dead. She does not look back.

A bloody trail follows in her wake, and still more shouts and attacks follow her toward the cargo bay. She is far faster than most of them and stronger than the rest, and she makes it to the cargo bay with nobody directly on her heels. 

She has no time for further thought as she comes face to face with cages filled with trolls, malnourished and sickly, lining the cargo bay walls. Lowblooded servants and goldblooded helmsmen, midbloods with the scars of servitude encircling their wrists. Their clothes are stripped of signs and color but it is clear not one of them is above olive. Some are so young that the outer rims of their eyes are still gray.

The hope on their faces nearly knocks Kanaya down. In the distance, more bodies are heading her way, and she doesn’t have time to weigh her options. She rips the bars of the cage wide, enough that the lowbloods begin clamoring out before she’s out of the way. They touch her hands, pat her back, whisper and sob thanks as they follow her to the cargo bay doors. 

The security is tight, but it doesn’t take much effort to begin cutting through the doors with her chainsaw. It’s slow work and all the while her ears are on high alert as Eridan’s crew gets closer and closer. 

The lowbloods begin pushing against the metal and it begins to buckle outward, letting in the frigid night air. As soon as the gap is wide enough and she is certain the coast outside is clear, Kanaya begins pushing them out into the night.

“I will find you again, you’re safe now,” she promises as the last trolls scurry into the night and the firing of a gun makes her ears ring.

She turns to the mob after her and grins, fangs long and skin glowing brighter than the Alternian sun. She would not fall to them, but she would let herself feed.

“Fucking  _ kill her! _ ” Eridan yells at the monitor. He had quickly locked himself in the command room, once it was clear that Kanaya was, quite literally, out for blood. Fucking rainbow drinker bullshit.

Eridan could only watch helplessly as Kanaya killed the helmsman without spilling a drop of blood, tore through locked doors and highblood guards with ease, and killed Gamzee without mercy. It would take days to get his ship repaired and backup crew on this shitty planet. Days in which the rebels would get further and further away. The still-fresh wounds on his face throb in time with his bloodpusher.

He punches the monitor as Kanaya begins freeing the gutterblood fodder. His anger is only fed by the idea that this disaster of a situation would be used to undermine the image he’s built of himself, all of his efforts from the past few sweeps undermined in one night by a single rebel.

No. The rage hardened into diamond clarity even as he heard the last scream echo through the ship. No, this would not be the end of his career. This would not be what the history books remembered Eridan Ampora for, a failure of a captain defeated by a midblood.

Eridan Ampora would be remembered as the captain who single-handedly brought the rebels to their knees.

With clear eyes and a clearer head, Eridan called for emergency repairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kanaya gets to go off and im proud of her for it!   
> also the helmsman is a fantroll of mine and i'd like to say this is the last time my fantrolls get to be background characters but it's not and im only a little sorry ksjdgfdjksg 
> 
> as always comments are cool! (especially rn as i battle writers block with only two more chapters written :pensive: )


	4. one bright moment is all i ask

John, not for the first time, feels out of his depth. He loves being on the crew and helping the rebellion, and especially being with his friends on this unbelievable journey, but he can’t help but feel like he’s just pretending to belong. Not that he doesn’t wholeheartedly believe in the cause, but that he is simply along for the ride while everyone else does cool shit.

Karkat does the real leadership and recruitment, Dave protects everyone and can turn back time, Rose can see the future, and Jade with her ability to move things through space and change the size at the molecular level gave her life to save Feferi. Not to mention the powers that others like Vriska or Terezi or Sollux have. So he can shift weather patterns and create localized weather phenomena, his powers could be thwarted with an umbrella. And being physically strong isn’t entirely helpful when there’s someone on the team with eye lasers.

He couldn’t even do anything when Jade almost died. She is fine now of course, and her seizures are no more dangerous than they ever were now that she’s sworn off teleporting, but when she has one he can’t help but see her, flat and motionless on the ground with glassy eyes.

Those same eyes, vividly green and imploring, meet his across the small stealth ship and he smiles as confidently as he can. She’s wearing a long white blouse over a skirt that sweeps the ground, the whole outfit covering the protective stealth suit she wears that matches everyone else’s. As the only one who had not been seen in town at the time of the attack, she would arouse the least suspicion if she asked around for the whereabouts of Kanaya. John, Rose, and Dave are tasked with sweeping the area outside of the town for her or for any signs she may have left.

Left or, Karkat had added reluctantly, was taken.

“Are you okay?” Jade asks quietly. “Worried?”

“Not really,” John says, not quite meeting her eyes. Not a lie specifically, he is afraid that Kanaya is gone or that someone would get hurt, but as things went this was not the most dangerous mission he or the others had seen. And Jade seems confident that things would work out, even without Rose looking into the future for certain. But he isn’t worried for himself, and that was the truth he gives Jade. Whether or not she believes him is something he doesn’t care to think about.

Thinking of Rose pulls his gaze to her in the seat next to Dave. She seems scared and drawn. She hardly spoke to the others except to confirm that she was going in blind. Jade follows John’s gaze and sighs.

“I can’t see things as clearly as she can, I just get really good gut feelings. I think things are going to be okay, but Rose is so scared to know one way or the other,” Jade says softly.

John could hardly blame her. If things were to go wrong, it was best not to know ahead of time and spend every second before in terror and pain. Not that he expected things to go wrong, he trusted Jade’s feelings.

“Okay y’all,” Dave spoke up in his best leader voice, “we’re touching down in a clearing of what looks like huge ferns about a mile and a half from town. There are a few other clusters of plants from here to there that look like likely spots for camps but just in case we’ll be splitting up. Comms check.”

“Here,” Jade chirped, her voice loud in John’s ear.

“Test,” Rose says flatly.

“Uh, hi,” John adds, feeling just a bit silly for testing long-distance communicators in the same room as the people he was meant to be calling.

“That was weaksause,” came Sollux with a snicker. He boosted and masked their signals from  _ The Signless _ enough that they should be safe from being picked up by outsiders and provided a line back to the ship, just in case.

“Hey, no outside chatter, dickface,” Dave said with a grin. “Comms are good. Jade, where you headed first?”

“Into town with Bec,” she replies promptly, putting a hand on Bec’s head. “I’ll lay low until I’m sure it’s safe for me to ask questions and if not I’ll be back here on the ship.”

“Yep. Rose?”

“I’ll be skirting the outside of town to provide Jade backup in a hurry if the need arises. I will also rejoin her on the ship should the town prove unsafe.”

“Right on. John?”

“Counterclockwise from the ship with the town in the middle of the imaginary clock. I examine each clearing from signs of recent activity,” John recites.

“And I’m clockwise,” Dave says with a nod. “We meet up at the southern point and then make another sweep together. After that we all meet up back here, assuming we haven’t already found Kanaya. Everyone got that?”

It’s so strange to see Dave taking charge. He fits the role well enough but doesn’t seem to want to. John could hardly blame him, it had to be hard to lead a group of friends like he was their boss.

“Yep!”

“Mhm.”

“Yeah.”

“Cool shit. Let’s get this party started.”

The small ship jolts as it touches down nearly silently. They all take a moment to double check their equipment before Dave gives the all-clear and the door slides open. The sand shifts under John’s boots and the foliage, so similar to a fern from Earth but blown up to massive proportions, shades him from the worst of the sun. The four look at each other silently, not for lack of things to say but because nothing feels right to say, and goes their separate ways.

“Check,” Dave says after a few minutes of fruitless searching through alien flora. There’s a single beep from Jade, her signal that everything is fine but she can’t talk. Rose whispers her confirmation and John follows suit. This repeats twice.

It isn’t exactly the action packed mission one would expect on an alien planet. It’s tedious work to find trails through plants John couldn’t begin to name and figure out whether they were fresh or not. Jade would have been better suited for tracking probably, and he could have hung back as backup or something. This seems far too important for him, he can’t even use the wind to hover higher for a better view in case he blows away evidence.

Half an hour and two false leads later, his comm beeps twice. A development. Jade’s voice sounds close and ragged in his ear.

“We are headed back to the ship with guests. We haven’t located the target but… we have intel.”

John feels frozen as he listens. There’s a beat before Dave responds.

“What do you mean by guests?”

“The town has eradicated many local allies,” Jade says, and her voice seems on the verge of cracking. “We have five survivors.”

Dave exhales into the mic and John can all but see him running a hand through his tight coils of hair. “Can we trust them?”

“Let me hear them,” John says. “I was with the rebels in town, I can vouch for their voices probably.”

A few names are spoken, tired and pained and afraid. All thankfully familiar, but far fewer than were in the room Karkat addressed. It was possible one of them was a traitor, but Karkat was great at weeding them out quickly and if that were the case they would be imprisoned on  _ The Signless _ until a rebellion planet agreed to hold them.

John spares a moment to think about just how weird his life has gotten.

“And what about intel, what did you find out about K-”

John does not hear the rest of the sentence as a fist connects to the side of his head. He falls but stays conscious, he thinks; sounds come from far away and the light that filters through the leaves seems to blur the world around him. For a confused moment he wonders if he lost his glasses. A gray face swims into view, with scared eyes and angular, pointed-back horns.

“Oh fuck I’m so sorry,” the face says. “You’re not one of them, I-I’ll get you to The Luminant right away dude, aw shit.”

John can’t say much as the troll, short but extremely strong, pulls him through the dense plant life. He distantly hears chatter on the comm but his head hurts so badly he can’t tell if his own rushing blood is making it distant or if the earpiece is broken or dislodged. It doesn’t matter, John slaps at his own arm as he’s dragged along and presses the call button three deliberate times. Emergency.

The troll is still talking and it takes all of John’s concentration to not either pass out or trip and fall and risk getting dragged across the sandy ground. Thankfully he doesn’t have to focus on his own two feet for long, because the moment he’s in another clearing there’s a cold pair of hands on his face that seems to drain the pain away like a cool breeze. 

He blinks, clear headed and now fully hearing the quiet chatter around him, and realizes that now things are blurry because he can’t see. His glasses are handed to him and the relieved face of Kanaya Maryam comes into view.

Green blood in the inn, the mass murder of rebel allies, and now John has sent out an emergency call. Things could not be much worse, Rose thinks as she sprints through the forest. Adrenaline keeps her thoughts at bay, beyond the simplistic need to run towards the emergency call. Her comm beeps as she nears the source of the signal, and a thousand possibilities run through Rose’s head. John could be bleeding out, he could already be dead, they could all be rushing into an ambush.

And, if she was honest, it would all be her fault for stubbornly refusing to see into the future, afraid of what the light would uncover.

She hears another set of footsteps, running far faster than her, off to her left. She knows without looking that it’s Dave, and she focuses on matching her speed with his, no matter how impossible that task is.

She does, however, manage to be the first to break into the clearing. Caution drives her to arm herself first and ask questions later. Her needles, sharp and gleaming, pick up the light from the sun straight above.

She drops them quickly. A dozen unfamiliar Alternians watch her with apprehension and fear. To the side of the clearing sits Kanaya, oddly pale and covered in blood but alive. Alive and already scrambling to her feet and Rose is running too, her still pounding heart racing even faster in relief.

They meet, solidly and crushingly, in the middle. Rose is shaking from exertion and emotion and covered in sweat but Kanaya holds her tight, as close as they could be to each other. Kanaya is ice cold.

“I’m so sorry, Kanaya, I should have stayed with you-”

“None of that now, shhh,” Kanaya soothes, tears leaking from her eyes and down her round cheeks as she stares at Rose with such intensity that it nearly melts Rose. “I’m okay, I promise you I’m okay.” 

Rose takes a shaky breath and cups Kanaya’s face, staring into her jade-green eyes. The shade of her sclera was different, a vibrant yellow where they had once been gold. Her skin was also much paler and oddly incandescent. “Are you okay?” she asks, worried. “You look… different.”

Kanaya laughs and Rose can see her fangs, once merely sharp, were now elongated and razor-like. Every aspect of Kanaya has always been vibrant and colorful down to her manner of dress. Where most of the crew favored function and comfort in their off-duty outfits, Kanaya’s were made and worn with an expert eye that drew her inner light outwards. Even the simple scrubs she wore while on duty were bright and ever changing.

Now there was even more of that color, as if she were radiating opalescent light from the inside out. She is entrancing, and Rose can’t help but run her thumb across Kanaya’s cheekbone reverently.

A polite clearing of the throat pulls Rose from her reverie. She takes a step back and gives Jade the opportunity to hug Kanaya as well; a friendly, almost certainly crushing hug that radiates relief. Rose takes in the clearing in the meantime. 

Trolls Rose has never seen before watch the group of humans warily. Understandably so, humans are thought to be one of the more unhinged species in the galaxy, and one of the few to strike at Alternian forces before they could take over Earth. That unpredictability was a draw for some Alternians who decided Earth was safer for them, while others treated humans as hostiles and were nervous in their presence at best. With a start Rose realizes that they are watching her closest of all, and at Jade who is still talking excitedly with Kanaya. In a short period of time it seems that they have latched on to Kanaya and were concerned about her proximity to the humans.

Movement catches Rose’s eye. John, seemingly perfectly fine aside from a trickle of blood down the side of his face, joins Dave by the edge of the clearing as Dave updates the crew of the situation. He has a relieved grin on his face and claps John on the shoulder as he bounds up.

“Luminant,” one of the trolls says with a suspicious glance towards Rose, “are these…?”

“Yes, this is the rescue team,” Kanaya assures. The troll’s mistrust seems to fade and they wander back towards the rest of the watching group.

“Luminant?” Rose asks, and Kanaya laughs softly. 

“I have much to catch you up on,” she says, and takes Rose’s hand.

Karkat is the first to reach her the moment she steps out of the stealth ship, hand-in-hand with Rose. He’s all but papping her face in full view of everyone and Kanaya rolls her eyes but allows herself to be worried over. It’s a nice change of pace if she’s honest, even if Karkat’s near-hysterics are embarrassing.

He does spare a moment to glance over the rebels and rescued lowbloods.

“The Alternians were in Eridan’s ship, and the others are all that remains of the rebellion you met up with,” she explains sadly, and understanding is quickly followed by indignant, righteous anger. He turns to them and addresses them solemnly.

“Listen, you have no reason to trust me, or to trust that you won’t be hurt or turned in. But I swear on my fucking life that you are safe here, all of you. We aren’t going to keep you here and you won’t be left alone on some nowhere shithole planet without a clue. Equius, my security officer, will take you to temporary rooms where you can get some rest.” He looks at the rest of the crew, long-time members who watch with relief and interest. “Don’t the rest of you globe fondlers have jobs? To your posts, this ship isn’t going to man itself, fuckers.”

In all the chaos, he still manages to be an efficient capitan in the way that only Karkat can, and Kanaya is thankful. He is commanding enough that the majority of the crew scatters quickly when ordered, most with well-wishes shouted over their shoulders. Others, jadebloods, give Kanaya pointed looks. She was not hiding her new affliction in any capacity and she doubted she ever would.

“I’m so fucking glad you’re okay, Kan,” Karkat says when the crowd has thinned down to nothing.

“Did you doubt I would be?” she asks with a smile. 

He narrows his eyes. “Of course not. But fine or not you’re still getting a full medical review.”

“Fuck.”

Being escorted to the medbay is an unfamiliar reversal of her role of being the one leading others to the medbay, only made stranger by the fact that Vriska and Terezi follow as well. She feels a measure of relief when all but Jade, Rose, and Karkat are commanded to wait outside of the private check-up room.

Jade begins checking up on her despite her insistence that she is fine. Karkat, his entire aura radiating worry, stands aside by the door and keeps others out. She appreciates the privacy immensely, more than she appreciates him keeping his waves of anxiety as far away from her as possible. Being on the table is far different from being the examiner, and she does not wear this change well.

Rose is kind enough to retrieve her a set of unbloodied clothes. Her hands linger on Kanaya’s for a moment longer than necessary, as if she needs the reminder that she is truly present and solid. She forces everyone, aside from Jade who is acting as medical assistant, out of the room to change. Once she sees objectively how blood soaked her previous outfit is, she allows herself to be checked further.

Jade’s breath catches when the scar on her abdomen is revealed. Kanaya had not been given a chance to inspect the wound that temporarily killed her, and looking at it under the harsh artificial lights makes her happy that she is near people she trusts as she studies the puckered scar tissue. 

Her transformation did not aim for aesthetics when it knitted her skin back together; though she is certain her organs had been perfectly repaired, her skin was not so carefully mended, leaving a swirling, green-tinged scar on her stomach. She reaches around to feel raised scar tissue on her back as well.

“I’m sure there’s some procedure-,” Jade starts, scrambling to assure Kanaya.

Raising her hand, Kanaya says, “No. I am going to keep this.” Her reasoning is difficult to explain, even to herself, but she knows it feels right. As if the scar were a reminder of what she nearly lost, and who she is fighting against.

Jade nods slowly, and begins checking boxes on Kanaya’s chart.

She supposes she’s lucky to be alive in any capacity. With a deep breath she closes her eyes, letting herself be fussed over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [points at the troll that punched john's lights out] thats my child! proud of them
> 
> this feels like a good chapter to start a short break on! i'm going to skip posting next week at least to focus on polishing the chapters i have ready to go and writing a bunch. sorry for the delay but consider it an intermission before things start to Happen :)c
> 
> second thing, i made sprite edits for this AU! only rosemary and davekat rn but [feel free to check those out!](https://dinosprites.tumblr.com/post/617028613214208000)
> 
> comments are very cool and appreciated!


	5. no grave can hold my body down, i'll crawl home to her

“After that, it was simply a matter of waiting. As we set up a sort of camp, the younger ones began asking about my title and I… I’ll admit, I’m young and it had been a bit of an impulsive choice, but Luminant is rather fitting now, is it not?”

Kanaya leans heavily on Karkat, the embroidery in her lap all but forgotten aside from her absent stroking of the fabric to feel its texture. They’re seated on the couch in his office, paperwork strewn on the desk and resolutely forgotten for the time being. Pity and worry clench at Karkat’s bloodpusher, among so many other things. Betrayal, not for the first time but still as sharp, from Eridan. A distant pang of mourning for Gamzee, or for who he could have been if only he had better people around him. A fierce pride wrapped in concern for Kanaya, who very nearly died several times in twenty four hours, alone aside from a group of kids.

He headbutts her and she laughs softly in return. “This isn’t quite the debriefing I expected to give,” she says.

“Shut up,” Karkat mumbles. “You could’ve died, Kanaya. You actually did, quite fucking literally, die. And now you’re this ass-kicking rainbow drinker who single-handedly decimated the crew of one of the most feared generals in the Alternian army who just so happens to be an old friend of ours. This debriefing could only be a feelings jam and I refuse to see it any other way. Captain's fucking orders.”

“Of course,” Kanaya says with a nod. “Who am I to go against the orders of the most formidable captain in all of the galaxies.”

“Shut up, part two,” he says, nudging her playfully.

The conversation lulls comfortably. Being near Kanaya is so uncomplicated for Karkat, a reprieve from his inherently complicated life. Technically, from the outside their relationship itself should be complicated; quadrants were traditionally romantic and the term moirallegiance fit best, but Kanaya had made it very clear there was nothing specifically  _ romantic _ in her pity for Karkat in the traditional sense. It had made sense to him even before meeting humans that there were different ways to pity- or to love. He does love her, but in an entirely different way than he loves Dave, and that she loves Rose.

It’s hard for him to explain, especially with his own issues in defining quadrants distinctly, but it hardly matters to him and Kanaya. They trust each other wholeheartedly, and Karkat knows that if it came to it he would lay down his life for her.

He can practically hear her pointing out that he would probably lay down his life for anyone who was nice to him twice but he ignores that.

“How are you feeling?” he asks eventually. “No bullshit, off the record, all that.”

“Was the rest of this on the record?” she rebukes, amused. Karkat gives her his best no-bullshit glare and she sighs.

“I’m… different now. Or rather, I’m the same person I was but more powerful. It’s exhilarating. But.” She struggles for a moment. “I came very close to dying. I did not, at least not in any permanent capacity, and that’s what matters, but I still very nearly did die. And then I didn’t, and the first thing I did once I was very much not dead was tear someone’s throat out with my teeth. After that I killed… so many guards, by myself.”

Karkat purred sympathetically. “Getting that close to death is fucking terrifying,” he says plainly. “Everything else about the shitty situation aside, you went through something that nobody should have to experience. I’m sorry, sorry that it happened to you and sorry for my hand in it.”

It is Kanaya’s turn to glare. “Did you shoot me, Karkat? Did you board Eridan’s ship, join his ranks, and attempt to stab me without me noticing?”

“No! I’d gnaw off my own shit-encrusted arm fingers first before I’d hurt you, what the fuck kind of question-”

“Then you had no hand in this,” Kanaya interrupts. “I wanted to leave the ship for medical supplies. Rose and I mutually agreed to split up to tackle our separate tasks quickly so we could meet up again and go waste our time planetside together. Nobody aside from Eridan and his crew are responsible for what happened to me. I will hear no more apologies from you.”

Mouth, meet foot. Even after sweeps he still had a tendency to turn things on himself when it came to personal matters. A wriggler habit but a lingering one.

“You’re right, this isn’t about me. Fuck them,” Karkat says eventually. “You shouldn’t have gone through that, his crew got what was coming to them. Killing them, while abso-fucking-lutely well within your rights, still must have been difficult.”

“Indeed,” Kanaya says. “At least, emotionally. I don’t think it’s something I’ll get used to.”

“Hopefully you won’t need to. That’s what we’re trying to do, isn’t it? Make a better society where we don’t have to kill each other or anyone else to survive. It’s a far off goal but dammit I’m committed.”

“I know you are,” Kanaya chuckles. “As am I.”

Kanaya, while not unused to getting her hands bloody, and in fact had no qualms with defeating hordes of daywalkers back on Alternia, had never been a killer. And now she’s a creature that was born from and built for death. She seemed to relish her newfound powers, but Karkat could see how the ramifications were weighing on her.

“Speaking of… except not fucking really, because I’m mentally parkouring from topic to worried topic as I have been for the past day and a half, but when it comes to your rainbow-drinkerism, how will you…?”

He’s oddly embarrassed to ask, blood being a difficult topic for him to discuss under normal circumstances.

“Ah,” Kanaya says sadly. “Feeding. If I am not mistaken, the act of feeding isn’t necessarily a fatal one. My options are admittedly limited, but I will not be taking my meals from anyone but the most willing. In fact, I plan to draw blood as opposed to taking it in more, well, traditional means. But I don’t feel it will be relevant for a while, I sufficiently quenched my thirst in my escape.”

“Thank fuck,” Karkat says, relieved. Then his brain catches up. “Not that I thought you would do anything harmful or anything, shit. I know you wouldn’t hurt anyone, I think Rose would let you drain her dry before you got to that point, but I-”

Kanaya is giggling, her face brightening. “Why did your mind immediately go to Rose, hm? Is it perhaps you’ve read the sordid tales of rainbow drinkers in the novels you insisted you never borrow?”

“Okay listen here Maryam, fuck you and fuck off. I never borrow your rainbow drinker erotica, thank you very fucking much! You remember just as well as I do that there was like five solid goddamn years where every other movie was something to do with drinkers and you know it.”

Karkat is blushing bright red and he knows it, only made more pronounced by Kanaya’s growing grin.

“Nobody said you had to go see them all though, did they  _ Vantas _ ?”

“I didn’t!” he yells, not quite drowning out Kanaya’s laughter.

“You’ll have to give me some recommendations,” she says as she stands, embroidery neatly folded away.

“So you and Rose can study?” Karkat asks, resolutely ignoring how immature he must look with his arms crossed and shoulders hunched.

“Oh no,” Kanaya says slyly, “she has been tearing through my novels, I’m certain she’s a star pupil already.”

Karkat hides his face. “I did not fucking need to know that! Bye! I have important fucking buisness to attend to now suddenly so get the hell out!”

“See you later,” she laughs, and leaves Karkat alone.

It isn’t an oppressive loneliness, and rarely ever was aboard _The Signless_. He can feel his crew, their willingness to fight for a cause he would die for. He, a low-power mutant, is surrounded by relationships and their power boosts him. He doesn’t need to use his powers to know that the bond between Rose and Kanaya was right where it was supposed to be, strong and close. He could trace his own bloodpusher to Dave, asleep in his room. Hundreds more glowing relationships thread the ship and hum with energy.

Karkat is left to his work for the night, but he wouldn’t feel lonely.

Rose jumps to her feet as Kanaya steps into their room. She doesn’t care how clingy she’s being, she needs to feel Kanaya in her arms, okay and alive. The hug she receives is enough to tear her fragile reservations apart and, feeling immediately embarrassed despite being alone in the room with the woman who owns her heart, she sobs into Kanaya’s chest. She is led to their bed, where Kanaya lays with her, wrapping herself around Rose almost protectively. 

“I should be asking how you’re feeling,” Rose says between hitching breaths. “I should be holding you.”

“Good luck, though not impossible it is rather difficult to be the so-called ‘big spoon’ while being nearly two heads shorter than the little spoon,” Kanaya says, her own voice watery as she rubs a thumb over Rose’s wet cheeks. Rose leans into the touch and laughs.

“I should have been there for you,” Rose says quietly, though infinitely loud in the tiny space between them. “We should have stuck together.”

“How could we have known?” Kanaya said. “Not to mention the fact that Ampora would have shot first and asked questions later when faced with a human. Or that I would not have been able to save those trapped on his ship if I had not been moving alone.”

Kanaya holds Rose’s face and looks deeply into her eyes. Though the colors were different and lit from within, they were the same eyes Rose had fallen in love with. “There is nobody I would trust more than you at my side,” she says, “but it was for the best things ended up as they did. In all, this was a single handed victory for us. I am alive, the empire has lost valuable time as we escape, and we have gained new crew members.”

“How are you feeling?” Rose manages to ask, and she notes how Kanaya’s eyes dart away.

“I have much to get used to,” she says diplomatically.

“Hm, a very graceful dodging of the question, my dear,” Rose says. Kanaya sighs deeply, and her cool breath caressing her face raises the hairs on the back of Rose’s neck in a not unpleasant way.

“I suppose I’m still not sure how I feel,” she says. “Even talking though it with Karkat has not put things into a neat little box labeled with a simple to parse emotion.”

Rose squeezes Kanaya’s hand sympathetically. “There is much to feel. Being confronted with the past in such a violent manor is not something many people have the mental fortitude to withstand.”

It was easy to dissect Kanaya’s feelings, certainly easier than trying to categorize the whirlwind in herself that still refused to calm.

“I suppose it isn’t,” Kanaya says, “but it isn’t as if I am unused to danger. I am a wanted traitor to the Empire, after all.”

“You are never called upon to make a one-woman stand against one of the Condesce’s pet general,” Rose points out. “Being a rebel is one thing, it’s another to be yourself, alone.”

Something in Kanaya’s face shifts, a subtle drawing in of her lips and overall dulling that makes Rose’s heart hurt. She draws herself in even closer, and Kanaya buries her face in Rose’s curly hair. A sob wracks her body.

“I suppose I- I had grown so unused to fighting alone. I did it and survived but to be alone, unsure when rescue would be on its way and suddenly a leader to so many trolls, some children, I… I was so afraid, Rose. I was scared I would never see you again, that the ship had been captured, that these trolls would die and I would be powerless to protect them. I trust my instincts but I wanted Karkat to tell them everything would be okay, I wanted Vriska’s luck and attitude, I wanted Jade to keep everyone’s morale up. I wanted you, I wanted your insight and your strength and your wit. I wanted you just to know you were okay and that we would both be okay.”

Kanaya cuts herself off shuddering and clinging to Rose. Rose’s heart is breaking as Kanaya finally falls apart, and she holds her as if she can put everything right if she just holds on.

“It is selfish to have wanted you there,” Kanaya whispers. 

“I wish I could have been, regardless. To have had your back as you led the way and liberated everyone, to destroy everyone who tried to hurt you,” Rose assures her. “Waiting here, not knowing how you were doing was painful beyond imagine.”

Rose bites her lip. _ You didn’t have to wait so long not knowing, _ a taunting part of her brain reminds her.  _ You could have known she was fine hours ahead of time. _

“I was afraid as well,” Rose whispers into Kanaya’s skin. “I was so afraid that I would look ahead to find that you had been hurt, or that you had already died and there was nothing to be done. That I would be alone in seeing your fate, that me seeing it would solidify things. I have the power to see into the future and I am far too cowardly to use it if what it may illuminate is too difficult to bear.”

Part of her wished to dull it. The taunting reminder that she is a useless psychic, the intoxicating allure of being able to close her eyes and know the most likely outcome to any situation. To dull her own cowardice and the pain it brings. It would be so easy; after all, alcoholism was genetic and her mother was no stranger to that particular brand of escapism.

Kanaya hugs her closer and Rose closes her eyes. She would do nothing that night, just enjoy the fact that Kanaya, though different, was alive.

Terezi huffs as she taps at the tablet in her hands and listens to it read off a name. Another possible crew member checked off and verified. Kanaya had rescued fourteen trolls from the empire and five other aliens from the planet they so narrowly escaped. She was thrilled, but interrogating them all one by one with no help from Karkat was annoying.

She is being unfair, she knows. Karkat can look into their very beings and see where their bonds and loyalties lie, and almost certainly would before anyone was allowed to fully join the crew. But right now, Capitan Cough Syrup was off with Fussyfangs and taking his sweet time getting her intel.

Whatever. None of her business. And she is far from powerless. She can see into their minds, track where their plans and ideas would lead. Sure, some were so impulsive that they had no solid plan to track, and circumstances could change their courses in an instant, but it would be easy to see if someone simply planned to turn the crew over to Condy the moment they touched down. There is a reason she is second in command.

As engrossed in her own thoughts and the tablet she is, she almost doesn’t notice Vriska until she’s standing directly in her way. Stress, acrid and heavy, rolls off of her.

“Is this really what we should be focused on right now?” she asks, and though her tone is snappish Terezi can sense the worried undercurrent.

“Do you have a better plan?” Terezi asks. “We’re doing our best right now just to evade capture if you haven’t noticed, it’s not like we can go planetside and start gathering the forces.”

“I know that. It just feels like we should be planning to do so as soon as we’re able. Having newbies on board won’t change shit if all we’re going to do is fly around with our tail between our legs like kicked barkbeasts.”

“You have a point,” Terezi says with a nod, “but until Rose is less, heh,  _ distracted _ by Kanaya’s return it’s not like we can have a strategy meeting.”

Vriska growls. “I hate when you’re right.”

“No you don’t, I’m always right. You just hate being patient,” Terezi teases. Vriska gently elbows Terezi as she passes. As gently as she can with her frankly ridiculously sharp elbows, anyway. With a quick kiss on the top of her head that Terezi can tell she immediately feels embarrassed about, she leaves Terezi to her work.

Up next, another troll. Rust, barely ten sweeps. This one is different, however. Terezi can tell they have mutant powers, though how their powers manifest is still unclear. She smiles as she enters, not quite welcoming but not as unsettling as usual. The troll is nervous and has clearly been crying recently and stands at attention as Terezi opens the door.

“Sit down, no need for that!” Terezi says brightly. All at once the veneer of respect falls from them and they sit, arms crossed on the desk as Terezi takes her place in front of them

“Where are you taking us?” the troll asks suspiciously. 

Terezi swipes at the tablet with her tongue quickly, to the vague disgust of the unfamiliar troll. “Furore Ticton, born on Alternia and conscripted into The Condesce’s army at nine sweeps.”

“How do you know that?”

“Stripped of sign for insubordination- heh, against an indigo, no less- and sold off to Ampora half a sweep later. Within your servitude you have been the subject of two execution orders that for some reason were never carried out. Rebellious, stubborn, impulsive, and emotional. There’s quite a file on you, easy to pick up considering how often you were being discussed among the highbloods. You, Mx. Ticton, are a Rage aspect.”

Their breath catches. Terezi lets them hang with a grin. It was hard for her to chart their path, but she was sure they had no plans beyond survival. Most below gold were the same way.

Terezi knows the rebellion is an opportunity for some, but a last hope for others. It never took much convincing to get trolls on their side, but there was always a choice given. However, having a Rage aspect on the crew, even a lowblood, would be helpful. If they decided not to join the rebellion, they would simply be dropped off on the nearest friendly planet with as many resources as they needed and the promise that betrayal of  _ The Signless _ ’s crew or location would be highly unwise. She could only hope they would make the right choice.

More interrogations are conducted. As much as Karkat was against using that word that was how Terezi conducted her interviews, though her methods are never violent. Tireless and thorough, absolutely, but nobody was ever hurt by her hand. Among the Alternians, three more mutants are discovered among them. She wonders idly how much of a mutation these powers truly are. Not every Alternian has them, but they showed up in species across the galaxy. If they are a mutation, they certainly aren’t genetic. It was a puzzle she spent hours toying with when she could but never came close to solving, if there was a solution at all.

By the time she’s finished she is tired, and enters Karkat’s office without warning to hand him her reports. Karkat is still awake as well, bouncing between his husktop, tablet, and an indeterminate number of papers in disorganized stacks. She can smell the burning worry in him and hears him run a finger through his frazzled hair with a groan.

“She’s getting too close,” he says. It scares Terezi to know that he’s right. Drones have attacked before, and they’ve had brushes with random low-level nobodies in The Condesce’s army, but never had they been in direct contact with someone so high level. The stakes had been raised when they rescued Feferi, and would not lower until Karkat was captured and the crew killed.

Terezi knows this, but she grins. “Then we need to start planning,” she says. “Vriska, Rose, and I will start discussing attack strategies as soon as possible.”

She can only hope their combined powers would be enough.

It took two days and the best of the empire’s mechanics to get Eridan’s ship repaired to its maximum potential. Getting the dead helmsman out of the helm, replacing the broken doors and fixing other structural damage that Maryam’s rampage had wrought, and building up another elite crew was not how Eridan wanted to use his time. It could have been much worse, he concedes, his status got him the fastest and most thorough crew, but the hours still passed.

He had been on the same planet as Vantas and the rebels and they slipped from his fingers with nothing to show for it. The failure stings, as much as he tries to hide it. And hide it he does, he had not reported back to Her Imperious Condescension since the escape. It was dangerous, but he at least had the safety of his position to avoid any direct threats. When his ship finally lifts off, he feels immense relief followed by a rush of determination.

_ The Signless _ is just a passenger ship with some stolen modifications, a glorified cruise vessel; they could not have gotten far. It was just a matter of which system they would jump to. They are in the midst of a system that isn’t yet part of Alternia’s empire, but bordered by two recent acquisitions. Of course preliminary scans detected no trace of Alternian or rebellion ships in a two-planet radius, but that was hardly enough to deter Eridan. 

As his ship breaks through the atmosphere, he balls his fists and closes his eyes to the expanse of space beyond. Hope. It is a cloying and wispy scent, like blood in the water. It presses against him, an uncomfortable and intangible pressure he longed to tear though with sharpened claws and gnashing teeth if only to escape its vice.

Hope is lies, Hope is the destruction of everything he has ever known, and Hope trails behind the rebels like the dissipating smell of rot on the wind. Time has blurred their trail but he has found others with less.

Eridan opens his eyes and commands his navigator.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm going back to posting every other week; low motivation, writers block, and keeping myself informed and aware of current events has kept me from writing much lately


	6. i'm using every second that i can

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how'd this chapter get so fuckin captor-centric?

For two lucky weeks, The Signless sped through planetary systems undeterred, not contacting any planets passed and sticking to the safety of allied systems. Luck, Rose thinks, and one hell of a crew. Sollux has been keeping them well-hidden, Equius was on alert at all hours keeping the mechanical aspects running smoothly, and all the while Karkat kept people from tearing each other's throats out. 

The morale boost provided by Kanaya being found alive with a heroic tale of tearing through Empire forces and rescuing a group of trolls, all of whom now revere The Luminant, helped as well. Not one of the newbies on board decided to settle down on a safe planet when given the chance. Rose assumed as much, talking to Captain Vantas once and living amongst the crew had a way of changing one's perspective.

She recalls Dave’s retelling of his first few hours aboard  _ The Signless _ and smiles. As if she knows her personal embarrassments were being dwelled upon, Vriska meets Rose’s eyes and scowls.

“You look pretty satisfied with yourself, why don’t you let us all in, Lalonde?” she challenges. Rose hates to hesitate, but she purses her lips and makes a show of raising an eyebrow and tapping her lips.

“Terezi cannot get her ass in here quick enough,” Karkat gripes from the head of the table.

“Damn you’re worried about Terezi’s ass now? I thought mine-”

“Strider, I swear to every fucking god I have ever offended that I will end you without mercy if you say one more word, do not fucking try me.”

“Love you too, asshole.”

John snickers and Karkat shoots him a glare that silences the whole table.

There are two rooms dedicated to strategy meetings. Rose had been assigned to strategy and planning rather late and thus had no say in the decor of the room she spent the majority of her working hours in. That room looked like the unhinged lovechild of an elementary school classroom and a well lived in frat house. Toys and documents scattered the tables and consoles and were piled in the corner like wayward dust bunnies. The walls were generously covered in chalk, crayon, and marker scribbles that were, even at first glance, brilliant and absolutely incomprehensible to nearly anyone.

This meeting is not taking place in that room, and Rose can’t tell if she feels relief or regret in the face of the bare walls and basic metal furnishings. At the very least, the less professional room had begun to feel familiar, and that was a comfort. But Karkat had insisted on using the less frequented room, and there they all sat around the large table, a majority of Karkat’s closest confidants. Those whose duties were not currently essential, Rose corrects herself, though no doubt that Sollux was listening in from the command deck as well.

Finally, fashionably late as is only the case when she feels it most dramatic, Terezi arrives. She strides into the room and takes her seat next to Vriska.

“Thank you so fucking much for showing up only ten minutes late, Second In Command,” Karkat says, though his anger is very clearly ingenuine. There was nobody here on time, including Karkat himself.

Terezi just smiles and shoots him the middle finger.

“None of you fuckers respect me, but I’ll get started anyway in hopes that you’ll all get bored of ogling your own shameglobes and pay me some fucking attention before Condy drops dead of old age and we win by default.”

“What’s got you all worked up?” Vriska says with a snort. “I haven’t seen you so annoying in sweeps.”

Karkat throws his hands in the air. “What the fuck  _ doesn’t _ have me worked up? We’ve been flying aimlessly for two fucking weeks, Ampora could very well be on our tail with Fishfuck right behind him, and our alleged  _ strategy experts _ haven’t had a viable fucking plan aside from keep running. We can’t risk stopping to spread the word or restock and refuel. I think I can safely be pretty damn worked up, Serket.”

The collected crew watches Karkat with varying degrees of surprise. Karkat takes a deep breath and shakes off his apparent meltdown. 

“We’ve seen worse,” he says evenly. “Hell, we’ve been attacked and boarded several goddamn times since we first set out, we have bounties on our heads that could make a highblood’s pusher skip, and our faces are known throughout galaxies. But never have we been so close that one of our crewmates gets a personal ass beating from a general. We’ll make it through but what would it take?”

“Why wait this out?” Terezi says, elbows resting on the table. “We strike against Ampora first, take him and any leads on us out of the picture.”

“Speaking from unwanted experience, his ship is rather advanced,” Kanaya says. Rose takes her hand discreetly. “Not only is it well fortified and far better equipped for battle, it’s helmsman powered.” 

There are low growls throughout the room and Karkat snarls. Kanaya closes her eyes and Rose squeezes her hand. She was told of what Kanaya did for the helmsman powering Ampora’s ship, and even knowing it was a mercy kill, it still shook Kanaya.

“Wait, what does that mean?” John asks, looking around with eyebrows drawn.

“This ship is powered by a long-distance solar engine,” Equius explains. “As we pass suns, it draws and stores fuel. A helm-powered ship continuously draws fuel from a helmsman, a psionic goldblood. It is a far more powerful source of energy, though less, well, sturdy. Helming is a painful and permanent process that very few are willingly subjected to. It starts with a surgery-”

“That’s enough,” Karkat cuts him off. Equius bows his head. 

Rose hopes sincerely that Sollux is not listening in, but knows with some certainty that he is.

“So going toe-to-toe with Eridan on our own won’t work,” Terezi agrees thoughtfully. “And there’s no way in hell we’d get on board The Battleship twice. We can’t strike first.”

Rose narrows her eyes. It had already been discussed amongst her, Terezi, and Vriska that a direct attack would not work. She can’t figure out what game Terezi is playing by bringing up an already thoroughly disregarded plan.

Then it occurs to her. Terezi is scared. The lack of plan worries her just as much as Karkat, if not more. She could see where decisions led, what fate lies at the end of a choice. Rose similarly deals in futures, though it’s likely her visions are driven by the fickle movements of fate rather than choice. The two could see entirely different outcomes depending on what choices were made before the future settled into the present.

At present, they have little to no plan aside from pushing forward, and Terezi could see something at the end of that path that would lead to ruin. The fact that she hadn’t told Rose, if that were the case, was more worrying.

Kanaya begins rubbing Rose’s hand with her thumb, and she realizes with a start that she had begun breathing heavily. Kanaya was giving her a concerned look but thankfully nobody else noticed Rose’s distress.

“We have to make a choice,” Rose finds herself saying. “I have to see.”

Terezi, blind as she is, stares directly and intently at Rose. Others give her less intense looks that are no less unsettling.

“You don’t have to do anything you aren’t ready to,” Kanaya reminds her softly.

“It isn’t a matter of being ready,” Rose says with a sad smile. “It’s a matter of being afraid that only upon seeing will fate be set in stone, and if I see at the wrong time I may lock us into a future in which we fail.”

“Oh please,” Vriska says loudly. “What are we even worried about? Like Condy could take us down with our powers. We’ve gotten this far just fine and looking into the future and seeing something bad won’t change that.”

Rose narrows her eyes. “This is a war. Luck has been on your side this long but eventually it must run out. Who is to say that it won’t run out today? Or the moment we are face to face with the Empress?”

“Well,” Vriska says as she leans forward, “I’m making the choice not to lose. What do you have to say to that, Lalonde?”

“I say you’re an overly confident bitch.”

A sharp-fanged grin. “I know.”

Oh, she’s beyond infuriating. Rose is loath to let her get the last word, but Karkat clears his throat and shoots them both a glare that ends the back-and-forth hostility. Rose also catches a knowing smile from Kanaya that she aptly ignores.

“We can’t get cocky,” Karkat says, gravely serious. “She has numbers and firepower on her side and we didn’t get this far by shooting ourselves in the fucking foot and hopping directly into her line of sight. Lalonde, if you do decide to do your Light bullshit, talk to Terezi first.”

“Okay,” Rose agrees.

Karkat nods and takes a breath. He starts talking about ship efficiency and teamwork and Rose allows herself to mentally wander. She is not the only one hardly paying attention judging by the mumbled conversation between Vriska and Terezi, but they’re frustratingly just outside of her hearing range and have no doubts they very well know that.

Kanaya leas over, her glow gentle and skin pleasantly cool, and kisses Rose softly on the cheek. “If all it takes is a choice then rest assured I am making the choice to make anyone who steps up to us wish they had never stepped foot aboard a spacecraft,” she says.

Rose believes her. Kanaya’s dedication to liberating Alternians was strong, and that scared Rose just as much as the idea of facing the Empire’s forces. Kanaya has died for the cause once already, a second death would surely stick. But she does not voice her concerns. Instead she smiles wanly and tries to ignore the pounding headache that seems to be building up.

He had a name once. Before becoming The Helmsman, before becoming The Psiioniic, before losing everyone and everything he knew and loved, he had a name.

It is so hard to remember. How long has it been since he’s been anything aside from The Battleship Condescension?

He half-remembers things, buried deep underneath lines of garbage code he could not untangle even after eons. Code fed directly into what passed for his auditory sponges, as lost to time and living wires as they are. Actions, but he can’t remember whose. Words, but he has no idea how long ago they were said.

A face, determined and red-eyed and saying something that gets his pusher racing in a low and captivating voice that he can still hear through the fucking static-

Heavy backpack full of notebooks slung over an olive-dressed back, and a huge grin when he lifts the pack with his psionics for a moment-

An imposing woman whose glow rivaled the moon, the only one he didn’t tend to bitch at-

Another, it feels different, of being contacted, a plea in gold-

Lines of broken code, corrupted and constant that drowns out their names and his own fucking name too.

A name. It pops up on his peripherals and if he were capable of feeling disgust he’d be rolling in it. Ampora. A name that holds power. He’s just shocked Orphaner got pailed and put his genetics into the slurry before getting clown-murdered. He probably shouldn’t know that but there’s a lot that’s input into various palmhusks and husktops he absolutely shouldn’t see.

A particularly sharp spike in the code erases his thoughts for a moment. He does not exist beyond what computations are implanted in his pan. He will not remember not existing, there has never been a gap in his suffering in the eons since his capture.

There is an incoming transmission from General Ampora. He pings Her Imperious Condescension’s private quarters as she takes her meal. As if blinking back into himself, he feels a pang of petty satisfaction in interrupting her by dropping a holoscreen in front of her lavish table and displaying the violetblood runt.

“Your highness, please excuse m-”

“I’m eating,” she says, annoyed. “You have ten seconds to tell me why the shell you’re contactin’ me before I send out the drones.”

“I’m closely tracking the rebels aboard the ship  _ The Signless _ ,” he says with smarmy pride.

_ Signless is dead, _ he thinks with such clarity it hurts down to the bones he isn’t sure are his anymore.

The Condecse sets her fork down and laces her fingers together and smiles her shark-like grin. “Why haven’t you caught them yet then, guppy?”

Signless, Sufferer, Kankri, red eyes and warm voice and-- what else? It hurts to think.

“There've been some delays, hostiles attacked on an unconquered planet but were swiftly dealt with. I lost two days but am now roughly a jump away from them.”

His title was Signless, there was a ship too, one that he and Disciple and the others lived on for a while.

“That ain’t an answer. Why haven’t you caught them yet, huh?” Her voice is gold plated barbed wire and it hurt his ears. Everything hurts so much but the pain isn’t all his. Someone is feeding him this pain.

This ship is different, this  _ Signless _ is different, why was there gold that isn’t his, who spoke to him?

“I planned on waiting for your orders, your majesty, but I’m afraid I may be forced to take matters into my own hands soon,” Ampora says tightly. Damn, violet has some globes for talking to The Condesce like that.

_ The Signless _ is a ship.  _ The Signless _ contacted him once, he knows it but trying to remember anything beyond that is like crawling through shattered glass.

The Condesce raises one manicured eyebrow. “Are ya now? You sure about that? ‘Cause last I checked, I give the orders. I’m tellin’ you, right here and fuckin’ now, that if you don’t deliver me The Heiress and Vantas alive an’ well so I can cull him myshellf there’s gonna be hell to pay.”

Vantas. Vantas was The Signless. His thoughts are labored and disjointed, like the words are magnets repelling each other unless held together tightly. This Vantas is different, Vantas is the captain of  _ The Signless _ .  _ The Signless _ is a ship and he gave them information once. He told them his title.

“Your majesty, that may not be possible.”

Ampora cuts the feed before he or The Condesce can. She is silent for an icy, terrifying moment.

“Ship, track that minnow’s location. Nobody fuckin’ talks to me like that and keeps all their limbs. We burn out the rebels and get his ass in one trip.”

Mituna Captor, The Psiioniic, The Helmsman, complies.

Sollux rolls his shoulders and sighs. He hasn’t been sleeping well, but nobody really has. Running from a threat that he can’t track but feels with sickening certainty is right on their heels would severely fuck with anyone’s sleep cycle.

_ The Signless _ coasts through a system of planets entirely void of life. It is silent in the stars, and Sollux is fucking thankful. The system’s odd sun setup and the gaseous planets with belts of asteroids gives them ample coverage that Sollux feels comfortable coasting through while Equius conducts minor repairs.

All systems are functional, and would be for a while. But not forever. The ship would run out of supplies before it would break down irreparably, but they would all be dead long before either was an issue.

Sollux rubs his eyes as if crushing the morbid thoughts. When his eyes focus again, he freezes.

A text box floats in one corner of the screen furthest to his left, its window fuchsia but the text within is gold and near incomprehensible. There’s a folder attached as well.

Y0U N33D 7W0 H1D3, 51GNL355. M4NL37 4MP0R4 15 8451C4LLY 0N Y0UR 8ULG3 4ND C0NDY 15N7 F4R B3H1ND. 1 D0N7 KN0W 1F 7H15 W1LL H3LP 8U7 CH4NC35 4R3 7H47 D0S3NT M4773R 7W0 M3 51NC3 1LL 83 CULL3D 45 500N 45 5H3 F1ND5 0U7 1 S3N7 7H15 0U7. MY N4M3 W45 M17UN4 C4PT0R. 74573 MY R0773D N00K, M33N4H.

Sollux’s hands shake as he frantically opens the file. Neon red and blue screens pop up across every screen, some with direct video feeds into The Battleship Condescension, others with coordinates, still others are logs and files full of sensitive information; all, Sollux confirms quickly, well encoded and nigh impossible to track. Mituna, Psiionic, was good about covering his tracks, but so was Sollux. He had made sure that his ancestor, and by extension, the Condesce, would be unable to track or communicate with  _ The Signless _ after their brief interactions while saving Feferi. To break through his programs would take immense skill.

He spares half a moment to feel sad that he never got a chance to know or learn from Psiionic. Then he gets to work. Calling in Karkat, Terezi, and Rose knowing with absolute certainty that at least half of the crew would be right behind them, he begins sorting and recording the windows. There is no telling how long the feeds would remain active and he needs as many eyes and minds on them as possible.

“Sollux, what’s the problem?” Karkat asks as he barrels through the room. His eyes dart across the screens with growing concern. Dave, Sollux is unsurprised to see, is next to him, jaw tight with worry.

“We got a message from The Psiioniic,” Sollux says, and Karkat’s eyes just about bulge out of his head.

“I thought the ship couldn’t contact us, especially not from this distance, how the evershitting fuck did we get anything from them?”

“Psiioniic’s the most powerful helmsman, no fuck that, most powerful hacker in existence. He broke through my encryption and every barrier I put up between us and the battleship,” Sollux says, trying and failing not to sound impressed. “He’s feeding us info, KK, look.”

Terezi and Vriska rush in and immediately begin pouring over the video feeds. It’s not long before more crewmates are dissecting transmissions between the Alternians and building up files and contingencies based on many major Alternian personnel.

A hand falls heavily on Sollux’s shoulder and he meets Karkat’s concerned eyes. “Sol, you need to take a break,” he says firmly. Sollux scoffs.

“Are you fucking serious, KK? First of all, I don’t trust any of you bulgesniffers to keep any sort of coherent track of any of this info without me here. Second, we can’t sit here forever. Ampora is coming and I’m the navigator.”

“You’re the  _ head _ navigator, Sollux, not the only navigator. Don’t get me wrong, you’re the best we have and not a single bastard on this ship would dispute that-”

“Damn right.”

“-But you’re just one person, and we have the people to cover you. When’s the last time you’ve even been to your fucking block, and don’t lie to me because I can ask Egbert, who is the worst goddamn liar I have ever met.”

Sollux presses his lips together, not meeting Karkat’s eyes. “I’m fine, stop trying to be my lusus.”

“Like hell you are, don’t give me that shit. Get some fucking rest you idiot, we can handle a little longer in this asteroid belt without Ampora ramming into us, I promise.”

“You can’t know that,” Sollux points out, but as he takes a step away he stumbles, his exhausted muscles protesting. “Ugh, fuck you. Fine.”

Karkat looks both relieved and smug, and Sollux watches the crew, so much smarter than he’d ever admit, analyzing the new data. He knows he can leave them under the watchful eye of Karkat and come back to data sets that aren’t entirely incompetently organized.

The lack of dying screams echoing through his thinkpan is the only thing that makes him comfortable enough to fall into a fitful sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the lack of updates it has been Exhausting recently ksjdgjskd and i hate to say it but i don't think my posting schedule will be as regular as i had hoped. im second guessing myself a lot with this fic for some reason? i Will absolutely finish this.... but much more slowly than anticipated
> 
> plus ive been finishing another project, a fan friendsim for one of my partner's fantrolls [that you can check out right here!](https://chaosbound-official.tumblr.com/post/622113843517259776/hello-everyone-at-long-last-i-bring-you-all) i did all the writing for that so if you wanna see my writing in another medium and learn about a fantastic fantroll please check that out uwu
> 
> comments [or asks](https://clockwork-dinosaur.tumblr.com) are extremely appreciated

**Author's Note:**

> i promised a sequel to Stow Away [checks calendar] about three years ago and here i am delivering it now that the fandom is gone and the epilogues/hs2 have arrived to kill any characterization dead i guess ksjdfgsd but what else are ya gonna do in quarantine aside from revive an old AU am i right  
> jokes aside i really love this AU and working on it off and on for the past few years has kept my love for these characters alive ykno? and i left things so open in the previous installment that Not posting this sequel felt unfair. so here i am starting to post, better late than never! parts of this were written right after Stow Away while later chapters are very new (in fact as of rn i only have three full chapters written) so if there's a notable change in writing quality or style that'll be why
> 
> please leave a comment, or [send asks to my tumblr @clockwork-dinosaur](https://clockwork-dinosaur.tumblr.com) if you enjoyed! comments are motivation fuel and the more feedback i get, the better this fic will be! right now the plan is to post chapters biweekly, every other Wednesday, but if I write fast enough I could bump that to weekly so.... :eyes:


End file.
